The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed – Adam Grant
Helping others is a natural extension of our role as diabetes care and education specialists. As echoed in the words of the great Martin Luther King, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?” While we continue our summer self-care series and have written in the past about the importance of self-kindness, attention on “other-focused” acts and concern for others leads to a stronger sense of purpose, deeper learning, meaning, happiness and richer relationships.
Today through a solution-focused lens we offer 5 simple ways to help clients/patients succeed:
- Inspire self-care with our choice of words. We’ve written several blogs on the power of words and person-first language used in encounters with patients/clients.
- Remember the details of other people’s lives. Your ability to be a positive impact increases significantly when the other person knows that you truly care about the details of their life. Maybe you keep notes on patients you’re working with. Tami often uses the “sticky note” feature in Epic electronic health record to make reminder notes about things important to her patients…pet’s name, favorite food, spouse/children’s names, etc.
- Share your knowledge. Having just returned from the ADCES23 conference in Houston, TX this is on our minds. We are continually educating ourselves to stay up to date on the latest guidelines, recommendations, and technology so that we can share with others .
- Engage in optimistic coaching to support self-efficacy and quality of life. Acknowledge what the individual is doing well and what has gone well. Determine together how they can succeed in doing more of that.
- Celebrate successes, big and small. When you recognize successes it’s easier to build upon those. Maybe a client is trying to lose 20 pounds. By breaking that desired 20 pound weight loss goal into smaller 5 pound goals, together you can celebrate the small 5 pound wins together building toward the bigger goal.
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Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
